Hearing
was held over the course of two days on the complaint and
counterclaim. The parties were present with counsel. Counsel
completed post-trial briefing by April 1, 2017.

I.
FACTS

The
plaintiffs, Nathaniel and Elizabeth Warren-White, and the
defendant, Martina Sullivan, own abutting parcels of property
in Freeport. This action centers on the location of a common
boundary line that delineates the southern side of the
Warren-White's property and the northern side of
Sullivan's property; the parties each claim ownership to
an area of land that lies between the boundary lines that
they separately promote, referred to as the "abandoned
road". The parties agree that under Maine law, each
party owns to the centerline of the abandoned road, unless
Plaintiff can establish title acquired to some part or the
entire southerly portion of that land through adverse
possession[1]. Accordingly, the parties seek a
declaratory judgment establishing the location of that
boundary line. Additionally, the Warren-Whites claim that
they have acquired title to the disputed area of land through
adverse possession. For the reasons set out below, the court
concludes that the Warren-Whites have established ownership
by adverse possession. As a result of the rights the
Warren-Whites have acquired in this way, the court further
concludes that proof of adverse possession gives the
Warren-Whites title to the property.

Sullivan
acquired title to property known as 104 South Freeport Road,
in Freeport, Maine on or about June 5, 1998. The
Warren-Whites acquired title to three parcels of real
property known as 17 Church Road in Freeport, Maine on or
about October 21, 2005. Prior to purchasing their property,
the Plaintiffs observed that the boundary line shared with
the Sullivan property extended along a line between two large
maple trees, and along an old stockade fence that ran a
partial distance on the same line between the two trees. That
line is also notable by reference to wire and wooden fence
remnants and lilac bushes. This was well supported by the
weight of the most credible testimony of Plaintiffs, Barker,
and Flynn. This line is consistent with the southerly
boundary line of the "Abandoned Road" as depicted
on the Parker survey or what the parties have referred to as
the "Shared Boundary Line". In October 2005, lawn,
flower gardens, landscaping trees, apple trees and other
plantings, beds, a brush pile and the stockade fence were
sited along the Warren-White side of the Shared Boundary
Line. The driveway accessing the Plaintiffs' property,
which was built in the late 1970s, ran along their side of
the Shared Boundary Line, all of which formed the basis for
the Plaintiffs to reasonably believe that was, in fact, their
boundary line.

By
contrast, Ms. Sullivan had not formed any belief to the
contrary. In fact, the evidence at trial conclusively
demonstrated that she and her immediate predecessor in
interest also believed that her northerly property line was
the Shared Boundary Line.

II.
ANALYSIS

A.
Adverse Possession

In
order to establish ownership of property on the basis of a
claim of adverse possession, the claimants must prove that
their use of her land was, over a period of at least twenty
years, actual, open, visible, notorious, hostile, under a
claim of right, continuous and exclusive. Striefel v.
Charles-Keyt-Leaman Partnership,1999 ME 111, P6, 733
A.2d, 984, 989. Proof of these elements is by a preponderance
of the evidence. Id., P3, 733 A.2d at 988.

The
prior owner of the Warren-White property, Inga-Lil Kunkle
built the residence and the driveway in 1977 and 1978. The
lawn was installed on the property soon after the home was
constructed. Kunkle and her agents openly used and maintained
the property up to the Shared Boundary Line from the late
1970s until 2005 by mowing and raking the lawn, trimming and
maintaining the trees and other plantings, maintaining a
brush pile, using the driveway to access the property and
plowing the driveway. Sullivan's predecessor in title,
Sharon and Jeff Flynn gardened up to, but did not exercise
any dominion beyond the old stockade fence and other fence
remnants situated along the Shared Boundary Line. Flynn would
occasionally seek permission from Kunkle to use the southerly
side of the stockade fence for gardening. Sullivan did not
use or maintain any of the property within the Abandoned Road
with the exception of the small section of property to the
south of the easterly end of the old stockade fence.

Through
the entirety of Plaintiffs' ownership of their property
until the present dispute arose in 2015, Plaintiffs'
contractors and tenants all used and maintained the property
up to the Shared Boundary Line. The overwhelming credible
testimony supporting this conclusion was supplied by
Plaintiffs, Curtis, Montgomery and Joyce. Although Plaintiffs
spent several years sailing around the world, they spend
considerable time back at their Freeport residence during
each of those years. Moreover, the evidence supports that the
historical dominion and control of the disputed property
continued to be exercised during that time. The fortuity that
recent photographs depict overgrowth in the abandoned road
area is of no moment to the analysis. The evidence
demonstrates that Plaintiffs stopped tending to the disputed
area when tensions arose between them and Sullivan. Moreover,
Sullivan's own testimony offered to counter the
overwhelming testimony supporting a finding of adverse
possession was not convincing, to say the very least of what
might be said of it. She argues that Plaintiffs never
actually used any portion of the abandoned road, which is a
claim that is substantially undermined by her testimony that
she could not see over the growth to make any such
observations. The Plaintiffs' driveway is in the
abandoned road area, which Sullivan surely must have observed
in use by Plaintiffs.

These
findings demonstrate that the Warren-Whites (and their
predecessors) occupancy of the disputed area was actual: they
controlled the land in fact, and they did so in a way that
has been consistent with the nature and potential use of the
property. See Striefel,1999 ME 111, P9, 733 A.2d at
989. This is revealed in their ongoing use of the property
and their dominion over the property. The overt and actual
use of the property by the Plaintiffs -- and the complete
absence of any comparable conduct by Defendant or her
predecessors in interest result-- in the conclusion that the
Warren-Whites have actually possessed the property in a way
that is sufficient to establish this element of their claim
for adverse possession.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The
Warren-Whites, and predecessors in interest, used the
property in an open, visible and notorious way. They did not
attempt to conceal their use of the properly, and their use
was sufficient to provide any other person with notice that a
claim of ownership based on any record title was in jeopardy.
See Striefel,1999 ME 111, P11, 733 A.2d at 991.
Additionally, the Plaintiffs&#39; use of the property was
hostile because they did not seek or obtain permission of any
other person to use and occupy the land. See id.,
P13, 733 A.2d at 991. The testimony that Mrs. White sought
permission from Sullivan to trim some vines in 2011 does
nothing to undermine the court's conclusion. Plaintiffs
explained that they discussed some vines that their
contractors had cut due to the fact that they had grown over
the Shared Boundary Line onto Plaintiffs' property.
Plaintiffs recalled that the contractors may have mistakenly
cut vines that were across the Shared Boundary Line on the
Sullivan properly but in any case never asked permission to
to trim vines that originated on the Sullivan property but
that were encroaching on the Warren-White properly. The
foregoing findings regarding the dominion of the disputed
property by Plaintiffs' predecessors in interest support
this conclusion for the relevant time period. Sullivan also
argues that the type of use put to the disputed properly by
Plaintiffs is not sufficient to put the title owner on notice
of adversity. The cases to which Sullivan cite are
inapposite. Moreover, it is the sum total of all of the uses
described herein that clearly provided notice to Sullivan.
Moreover, the contention that the disputed properly was a
tangle of vines an weeds is as overwrought as it is
inconsistent with the evidence the court found to be most
credible; to wit, the testimony of Plaintiffs, Ms. Barker,
and Ms. Flynn, among others. All testified convincingly that
while the southerly portion of the Shared Boundary Line, the
Sullivan propery, was a tangle of vegetation, the property to
the north of that line was completely and continuously
maintained to include gardens, ornamental trees, shrubs,
ground cover, lilac hedges, lawn, brush pile. To the extent
there is any overgrowth in the abandoned road area, the court
...

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